


Hunger

by bigolegay



Category: Black Sails
Genre: First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, I should have done so much today but instead I wrote this, M/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Canon, Sharing Clothes, Smut, period-typical internalised homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:59:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigolegay/pseuds/bigolegay
Summary: “Are you afraid?” Thomas asked. His voice was not judgemental or teasing. It was a genuine question borne out of curiosity and a will to chase away any fears that existed, and James felt any misgivings he had had about allowing Thomas into his room melt away.“No.”





	Hunger

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my lovely beta reader dreamer-98 who was not only exceptionally fast at reading through this and getting back to me about all of the bits that needed tweaking, but also made me feel far more comfortable about my writing than I have been in a long time! Thank you!!

 It had been a week. One whole week since that stomach-twisting dinner that had left James hungrier than when it had begun. In the space of seven days he had at least managed to calm the riotous storm in his belly that had refused him an appetite for food, but he had done little to calm the fire that had been set ablaze at the touch of Thomas’ kiss. It had invaded his thoughts at times both acceptable and inopportune, had made his hands clammy when they should have been dry and sure, made his clothes too hot on cool days, and made him bashful when he should have been bold.

It was not the only kiss they had now shared, but Thomas was often a man of words before he was a man of actions; he seemed determined to talk more on his attraction to James, his attraction to men, and the liberties of free sexuality than he did to act upon them. This seemed especially so when James appeared or even professed his lack of comfort with such ideas.

“But James,” Thomas would start, upon reading the high flush on James’ cheeks as easily as he would a book – shame and arousal both plain as day, “You do not need to be ashamed. Not with me, nor with anyone else.”

It was easy for him, James often found himself thinking, for he was protected by title and blood. But a navy man without high birth, who marched his way to the position of Lieutenant through pure determination and the hard-won attention of Admiral Hennessey, could not cast off the shackles of shame as he would a veil. For him, the veil was a necessity, as much a shield as it was a mask. But no matter how he argued this, how he worded it, Thomas would always out-argue him, or else the passion in his eyes would turn into something else and they would exchange new kisses there in his study, alone, far from the window where they could not be seen.

It had been a week of that, and of much else. With James now professing his support for Lord Hamilton’s proposal, the push to write it up proper was in full swing. They worked with a fervour when Lord Ashe was with them, and worked almost as hard as when they were without. The fever-pitch of their work was at odds with the long stretches of silence it required when there was nothing but the scratch of a pen on paper and the re-shifting of limbs in hard chairs. The time for debate had passed, and now the conclusions of their discussions were to be laid out in simple and deliberate terms. It was draining work that ate hours from their days, and it no longer came as a surprise to lift one’s head after what seemed only a few moments of work to find that the light in the room was gone and it was close to supper time. It was because of this that James found himself dining with the Hamiltons with even more frequency than before.

This particular night they had not ended their work when the dinner gong was finally rung. They had eaten politely but with haste, exchanging spirited progress with Miranda over baked fish and boiled potatoes. There was something different about her that James could not quite put a finger to – perhaps he did not want to – and spending time with her at the same time as Thomas was uncomfortable, like a pin against his neck. He could not help but remember Miranda’s expression when they had broken apart, nor her worried looks in the discussion that followed with her protective hand placed on Thomas’ shoulder.

After supping he and Thomas had retired again to the study to begin once more on their third draft. At the cost of another hour’s work they had fallen into a few hours’ discussion instead. It had begun simply enough with a comment on the food served, and had somehow transmuted into yet another discussion on shame. A knock at the door interrupted them, and James stood up as Miranda slipped inside with a candleholder in hand.

“Am I interrupting?” She asked, a pleasant smile on her lips, and though she had not interrupted anything that James and Thomas would not have engaged in before the kiss, James found himself colouring under her gaze. He had removed his coat long ago and stood in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and despite having taken her to bed numerous times, he felt uncomfortably nude, bare, exposed.

“Not really,” Thomas sighed and stood himself. He took a breath to speak again, but the soft chimes of the Italian clock sat upon the mantlepiece interrupted him. James glanced to it, and then stared. Had that much time passed already? “Oh,” he heard Thomas say.

“I had thought that perhaps you two should be reminded of the time.” Miranda said, and James could hear the wry twist of her lips in her voice. Reminded, indeed. At half ten there was no way he would make it to his lodgings before lock-up. His landlord, a strict man with a heavy brow and toad-like mouth, was always quick to fasten the shutters and turn the lock by eleven, and no amount of knocking or pleading could get him to open them again. If you missed curfew, then you were without a bed for the night.

“Will you require a carriage?” Thomas asked him, now at Miranda’s side with a hand on her back. James looked to him, and then to Miranda, who he knew was aware of his predicament and of his landlord’s strictness.

“I doubt that even the fastest driver could deliver our Lieutenant to his lodgings in time. Come, I’ve had a guest room made up on the off-chance.” She drew a shawl tighter about her shoulders and reopened the door.

 

*

 

The room was uncomfortable in its lavishness. Though the Hamiltons may have been unconventional in many aspects of their lives both private and public, they were champion performers of etiquette. The room itself was as stunning as the rest of the house, dressed in dark wood and sumptuous flocked wallpaper. The grate had been swept and a fire lit, slowly warming the room. A well-sized bed sat opposite, turned down and heated with a copper bed warmer whose handle stuck inelegantly from beneath the sheets and blankets. James, left alone within it and holding fresh cloths and one of Thomas’ nightgowns, felt rather out of place.

He washed his hands and face with the jug and basin provided, untied his hair so it was loose, and changed into the provided nightgown. It was too tight around the shoulders, and stretched awkwardly about his chest, whilst in other places felt too roomy, and certainly too long. For a moment James stood in front of the looking glass at the ridiculous picture he made, and plucked at the fine linen sleeves. Then, with nothing better to do, turned to the bed and, once the warming pan was removed, slipped inside of it.

The goodnights he had shared with Thomas and Miranda had been strangely formal and stilted. There was an odd tension, a heat in the way that Thomas eyed him and smiled as he had passed over his nightshirt. James was highly aware that just down the hall Thomas was similarly clothed and washed, and pressed against Miranda’s soft form in the comfort of their bed. The thought brought that flush of colour upon him again, and heat prickled at his skin and itched at his fingers.

He knew Miranda’s body well. It was pleasing to the eye, and just as much so to the touch. There were places where her skin cooled quickly if not covered – the sides of her hips, the back of her arms, her calves and dainty feet. He could imagine Thomas’ position as if it were his own, and the smell of pomade in her hair. In his guest bed James rubbed his cheek over the soft cover of the pillow. The nightshirt felt awfully tight over his shoulders, and the deep breath he took tightened it further until it ached with the strain.

But what, he wondered, was the difference that Miranda felt between the two of them? James had never lain in a bed with her to sleep. His meetings with her were often quick; hurried, even. There was no time or space for laying together in the aftermath. There were bodies to clean, clothes to right, and places to be. But with Thomas she must be able to take her time.

He wondered what she looked like with him. Did she take him in her mouth? Did she ride him, also, with that same hard grind? Did he reach up to her breasts, cup them in his long-fingered hands, suck the nipple into his mouth? Did he roll her over, legs scrabbling on the sheets to find purchase as he thrust inside, lost to anything but her?

James huffed, closing his eyes tight and clasping his hands into fists. How perverse was he to think of his hosts like that, only walls away, when they had invited him into their home? Appalled, he decided not to think of it any longer, and turned into the colder part of the bed so that the sheets could cool his overheated skin.

He lasted five minutes before the thought of it resurfaced. He wondered how many times the very nightshirt he was wearing had been sweat-damp from their coupling. How many times it had been pulled off and discarded in the heat of it all. How many times it had watched with stitched eyes as its owner mounted his wife. Thomas, he mused, would probably fuck like he argued – with clear thought and persuasive moves until the other party gave themselves wholly to him. Did he talk during the act? Lord, what filthy things might he speak in the moment of passion?

He remembered then that Miranda was not the only one in this marriage to have affairs, that Thomas had spoken openly and freely of his previous relationships with men, and James’ mouth turned dry as heat and shame twisted in his gut.

There was a knock on the door.

James rolled over to face it. For a moment there was stillness and he wondered if he had imagined it, or if the house was settling. Then it came again, a quick, short, tap-tap-tap. A soft light flickered under the door frame.

The time was well past eleven, and even the night-staff would be abed by now. He slid out from under the covers and tip-toed over to the door. His borrowed night-shirt tented embarrassingly over his half-hardness, and to hide it James stood behind the door and peered around it.

At first he was met with a chest; flat, and mostly covered with a similarly fine nightshirt as the one he wore. Then he looked up, and met Thomas’ smiling eyes. He held a candleholder aloft, the light from the flame illuminating him unevenly, but still kindly.

“May I come in?”

A goodly sized part of James wanted to say no, to close the door and will it all away, and sleep like the dead until the next morning when he would face Thomas and Miranda again. But another, larger part was curious. And hungry. So hungry. So rather than refusing him, James nodded and stepped back, pulling the door open.

If Thomas noticed the tenting of his nightshirt he hid it very well. As he slipped inside James closed the door behind him with a soft click and watched as Thomas padded, bare foot, to the bedside table where he placed the candle. Illuminated by that one point of light, James could see the transparency of his nightclothes, and could trace the long line of his torso, into hip, into leg. He swallowed, the sound of his throat clicking loud in the room.

Thomas turned to him. When nothing was said, and neither moved, a slight flicker of concern crossed his face. “I can leave, if you want me to.” He said quietly.

“No, it is not that.” James assured him, and took a few faltering steps towards him. “I am simply…” Simply what? Nothing seemed simple in this, nothing _could_ _be_ simple in this.

“You did not expect me?” Thomas offers in lieu of a continued explanation. James nodded, gratefully and honestly. It was risky, having Thomas here in this room with him, both undressed, both filled with longing. But there was something intoxicating about Thomas, as if just by being present he could bring you around to his way of thinking. Thomas blinked a few times. “Are you afraid?” He asked. His voice was not judgemental or teasing. It was a genuine question borne out of curiosity and a will to chase away any fears that existed, and James felt any misgivings he had had about allowing Thomas into his room melt away.

“No.”

Thomas shone when he smiled; even with muted, quiet smiles like these. He stepped forwards just as James did the same, and they met somewhere in the middle. Thomas’ body was warm under his nightshirt and James could feel his back through it where he lay his hand. Thomas’ touch on his neck was chilled, and the tightness of his own nightshirt around his chest increased as he inhaled against it. Unlike that first kiss, James closed his eyes well before their lips met.

Thomas’ hand slid to press against James’ cheek, holding him there as they pressed together – first lips, then chests, then stomachs. His half-stiff cock pressed against Thomas’ hip and he felt Thomas sigh against him just as his breath left him in a rush. He peppered kisses over James’ lips, gentle and patient and adoring.

Thomas’ lips were firm, his mouth wide but not unpleasantly so. His nose butted against James’ and pressed into his thin cheek, and his hands seemed to both grasp and caress. As if drawn to it, Thomas’ hand slid into James’ hair and his short, blunt fingernails scratched over his scalp. James broke out into a flurry of goosepimples, the hair on his arms and at the back of his neck raising before shivering loose again. In an effort to recreate some of that same feeling in Thomas he wrapped his arm tighter around the other’s back and clutched at his waist, his hip, his upper thigh.

James found himself making small noises – little gasps that he caught in his throat, small bitten-off grunts as Thomas shifted against him, _hardened_ against him, and he could feel the progress of it on his hip. Thomas was making noises too, sighing as they kissed, and a soft moan as he lewdly pressed his tongue to the seam of James’ mouth.

But fuck, if he wasn’t just as lewd himself.

He was aching now, each touch Thomas blessed him with kindling that blaze in his belly, fanning it to new heights. His hands roamed over the planes of Thomas’ lean back, over his sides. He felt Thomas rock against his hip and pressed back, the much-desired friction pulling his lips away from Thomas’ with a low groan. A hand slipped to his hips, _around_ his hips, grasping his arse and tugging him closer. A wet kiss was pressed to his cheek, just next to his ear.

“Come to bed with me.” Thomas said, his voice thick, and James felt himself nodding as a pulse of arousal hit his groin.

“Yes,” he said, and could have said it again and again, because Thomas made him _want_.

They separated, Thomas pulling at James’ wrist to follow him onto the bed. They knelt together in the middle of it and Thomas, eager, slid a lean thigh between James’ legs to press up against his cock. James kissed him again, lips puffy and damp, and this time he pressed out his tongue, and heard the desperate, broken noise Thomas made as he welcomed it into his mouth.

He had never kissed so wetly before.

Each touch of Thomas’ tongue against his own had James’ fingers twitching where they sat on his hips. He balled up the nightshirt in his hands, and then Thomas’ hands were over his, and he was pulling away from the kiss to pull it over his head.

His chest was lean, thinner than James’ own, and lacking the muscle that the navy had chiselled out of him. Any hair was sparse, too light to obscure the sight of skin, so much skin. He reached out, hand sliding over warm pectorals, and felt the heave of breath under his palm, the beating of Thomas’ heart. His stomach was soft, but not plump, and it was pale and blemishless. Beneath it was his cock, jutting stiff and proud between his legs. At the sight of it James’ own cock jumped, and that sour shame jumped with it. But then Thomas’ hands were eagerly tugging at the hem of his borrowed nightshirt, and the struggle to ease it over his shoulders had them both dissolving into a fit of embarrassed giggles.

“Shh,” Thomas hushed between soft bouts of laughter once they had finally tugged it up and off. “The maidservants will hear.” He tipped his head up to the ceiling, where in the attic the servants of the house lay sleeping.  James fell quiet, his eyes stuck on Thomas in the low firelight. He reached out a hand to cup the side of Thomas’ neck, drawing the other’s eyes down to him once more.

There was a beat as the heat, banished momentarily by the awkwardness of unfitting clothes, resettled over them, and James pulled Thomas back in and down for another kiss.

Thomas’ hands roamed freely now over James’ body, gripping at his back, at the meat of his thighs, and smoothing over the cut of his hips, his stomach, his pectorals. He halted their kisses for a while just to look at James in the gloom, to kiss his neck, his broad shoulders, his chest, and card his fingers through the red hair there until James felt himself leaking with anticipation.

“Thomas,” he started, not sure whether to beg or reprimand, but Thomas quietened him by sliding his hand down, further, further, until his knuckles bumped the head of his straining cock.

“You are very beautiful, you know.” Thomas said, as if he were remarking upon the weather. James watched his eyes scatter over the freckles on his shoulders to where they were most concentrated on his arms, and then over his chest and to his cock. Featherlight, he turned his hand and whispered his fingers over the shaft.

“ _Thomas_ ,” James rasped again, and let out his breath in a shuddering sigh as the grip firmed and he was held, finally, in Thomas’ fist.

He reached out to return the touch, fingers fumbling over Thomas’ stomach and down to where he was stiff and hot. It was not a wholly unfamiliar feeling, the weight of another man’s cock in his hands, but the situation was. The closeness, their nudity, the heat of each other’s skin. He heard and felt Thomas’ moan as he closed his fist around him, tugged at him, and was enraptured by the shudder he felt wrack through the body he held.

“Lay down on the bed.” Thomas said, urgency colouring his voice, and released him so that he may oblige and fall back against the blankets.  

Following, Thomas settled between his legs and kissed at his chest, cupped the muscle of his pectoral in his hands, sucked a nipple into his mouth. It punched the air from James’ chest, and each flick of a sinful tongue seemed to strum a line right to the tip of his cock. He muffled a groan through his teeth as he looked down at Thomas, who in turn looked up at his through his lashes with a sincerity that, if James had not already been laying down, would have knocked him over.

He moved down his body, pausing to ply the skin with kisses and licks, and occasionally small, gentle scrapes of his teeth, until he reached James’ crotch and the hot air of his breath hit his member.

“Thomas,” James said for a third time, as if it was all he could say. “You don’t have to-”

“I _want_ to.” Thomas replied, wrapping a hand around James’ shaft and squeezing lightly, watching in the dim light as a trickle of precome oozed from the tip and spread onto his thumb. He smeared it over the head and down the shaft, drawing a hiss from James above.

“It’s-”

“-Something I enjoy doing.” Thomas insisted, and tugged on the cock in his hand as if to prove a point. When James simply groaned in response and lay his head back on the pillows Thomas smiled, victorious.

He nuzzled the damp, musky space where James’ thigh met his crotch, kissed the base of this shaft, and licked a thick, obscene strip up the underside. Beneath him James shivered, his breath heaving and an arm thrown over his face to hide it. Noticing, Thomas made a sound of discontent.

“Watch me, James. Please.”

With a deep breath James removed his arm and peered down the length of his body to where Thomas lay, his long legs cramped to stay on the bed, his chest against the mattress. He reached up with the hand not currently attached to James’ cock, and, when James reached out to it, clasped at him and guided his hand to the back of his head where his skull curved into his neck.

James let out another shuddering breath, and wondered how he was possibly still alive with all of the air Thomas was stealing from him. He felt it as Thomas shifted, and watched as he lowered his mouth over James’ cock again.

His mouth was hot, wet, his tongue dextrous and quick, and James couldn’t help the whine that left his throat as Thomas enveloped him.

He sucked him down, rocking over the length with what was clearly a practiced ease, and James felt a curl of jealousy for the man who had had Thomas before, who had taught him these things. What he could not fit in his mouth he eagerly fisted with his hand, squeezing in rhythm to match the hollowing of his cheeks and the licks of his tongue that became cat-like when he pulled off for air.

It wasn’t long before James was fidgeting on the blanket, fighting the desire to thrust up into Thomas’ mouth each time it descended on him, and he could hear those noises spilling from him again – grunts and gasps and sighs as Thomas took him.

“Wait,” he voiced, feeling the urgency of release slowly coming upon him. “Thomas,” He pulled lightly at the short hairs between his fingers, and, as Thomas finally let him slip free, tugged him up to kiss him. Thomas’ mouth was hot and slick, his lips puffed, and he tasted of cock and the steady slick that James had leaked into him. They moaned into each other, and James felt another spurt of pre dribble out of his cock.

Rolling them over, James pinned Thomas to the bed, kissing him thoroughly and covering his chilled body with his own. Thomas’ tongue was thick in his mouth, his hands scrabbling over his back as he wrapped his legs around the trunk of James’ body and rutted against him. James could feel him hard against his stomach, and ground down with similar force so that they slipped together, trapped between their bellies.

“Like this?” He asked, breathless, and kissed at Thomas’ flushed neck, feeling him nod into his shoulder.

“Like this.” Thomas replied, digging his nails into James’ back and his heels into his thighs.

They rutted together like animals, James’ cock sliding over Thomas’ hardness, his stomach, his hip, and catching in the dip where his thigh joined his pelvis. With each thrust of his hips he could hear himself grunting, and absently he realised that Thomas was speaking in small half-worded sentences, lewd curses flying from his lips like prayers and burning James’ ears.

‘ _Fucking beautiful_ ’ and ‘ _Lord, your_ prick’ and ‘ _more,_ _give me more, James_ ’.

His orgasm came upon him quickly, then, and James muffled his desperate moan in Thomas’ shoulder as he jerked and thrusted hard against him, knees slipping on the blanket as he spilled wetly onto their stomachs.

He panted hard against Thomas’ collarbone, sweat cooling on his skin and trickling in beads down his side and chest. Beneath him Thomas fidgeted slightly and moaned with both arousal and frustration. Leaning heavily on one arm, James pulled back and reached between them, moving his own oversensitive cock out of the way and taking Thomas in his fist.

“Fuck,” he heard Thomas whimper brokenly, and watched as he thrusted into his fist, James’ release pooling on his tense stomach. A few flicks of his wrist later and Thomas was still, hands clawing into James’ shoulders as he came messily in thick ropes. James watched his face through it, watched his brow draw up, his mouth hang open, and felt his tired cock twitch against the back of Thomas’ thigh.

 

*

 

Afterwards, they lay side by side. The room was hot, now, and James could feel the sweat in his armpits, the bend of his knees, and on the back of his neck slowly cooling. Thomas was gazing at him, studying him, and he reached over to lay a hand on James’ sticky chest.

He licked his lips and looked as if he was going to speak, but cut himself short. James looked at him with surprise and expectation.

“Thomas Hamilton, speechless.” He murmured, humour in his tone as his lips curled into a wry and teasing smile.

“Oh, if my opposition knew that to shut me up all one had to do was stuff a prick in my mouth.” Thomas quipped back, and delighted in the startled laughter it drew from James, though he pressed a finger to his lips all the same, mindful of the time, and the sleeping bodies in the rooms around them.

There was a long pause, and James felt himself drifting towards the sweet call of sleep when Thomas spoke again. “You truly are a very handsome man.”

James blinked himself back awake, turning his head to Thomas and then his body, resting his head on his arm. He reached out and traced a line over Thomas’ chest with his index finger, light and then firm. “You are, as well.” He replied, but looked more at Thomas’ face than his body, watching as the corners of his eyes creased, and he smiled.

“I should leave, lest I fall asleep here.” Thomas said, and leant forwards to plant a kiss to James’ lips.

“Miranda might have woken and be wondering where you are.” James spoke as they parted, and rubbed a hand over Thomas’ shoulder.

Thomas laughed, a soft thing through his nose, “Miranda was the one who bade me to come here.”

James did not reply, but did venture to run a finger over the smooth skin of Thomas’ cheek, just beside his twinkling eye.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come shout with me about how amazing Back Sails is on [my tumblr](http://fabulous-lesbian-queen.tumblr.com).


End file.
